### Chaos at the Garden: Rangers Reel from Sullivan’s Lineup Gamble as Penguins Series Looms Large
In the shadow of Madison Square Garden, where the ghosts of glory still whisper through the rafters, the New York Rangers are staring down a nightmare they never saw coming.
It’s late November 2025, and what was supposed to be a season of redemption has devolved into a frantic scramble for identity.
Head coach Mike Sullivan, the architect of two Stanley Cups during his storied tenure in Pittsburgh, has been tinkering endlessly with his lineup, chasing chemistry in a cauldron of injuries and underperformance.
But the tweaks aren’t sticking, and with a pivotal three-game series against his old Penguins squad kicking off this weekend, the Rangers find themselves teetering on the edge of irrelevance in the Metropolitan Division.
The cracks started showing early. After a promising 6-1 demolition of Pittsburgh back on October 11—Sullivan’s triumphant return to PPG Paints Arena, where Adam Fox lit up the scoreboard with two goals and an assist—the Rangers hit a wall.
Fast forward to now, and they’re mired at the bottom of the Metro with a 11-11-2 record, scraping together just 24 points through 24 games. Their offense, once a juggernaut led by the likes of Mika Zibanejad and Artemi Panarin, has sputtered to a league-third-worst 2.48 goals per game.
They’ve been blanked five times already, including a humiliating 3-0 shutout in their home opener against the Penguins.
Home ice, that sacred ground where legends like Messier and Richter forged eternities, has become a house of horrors: 2-7-1 at the Garden, with a six-game skid mercifully snapped by a gritty 3-2 win over the Blues on November 24.
Sullivan, ever the tactician, points to the injury bug as the root of this malaise. “We’re a resilient group, but we’ve been tested,” he said after the Blues victory, his voice steady but his eyes betraying the strain. Key absences have forced his hand into a spiral of constant reshuffling.
Captain J.T. Miller, the heart of the second line and a pending unrestricted free agent whose extension talks hang like a storm cloud, has been sidelined since November 20 with a nagging lower-body issue.
His absence compounds the scoring drought; Miller’s 12 goals and 18 assists through 20 games were a lifeline, and without him, the top-six feels adrift.
Vincent Trocheck, the gritty center who anchors the power play and penalty kill, returned from a month-long upper-body tweak just in time for the Predators win on November 17, but he sat out practice on November 24 and is a game-time decision for the upcoming slate.
Then there’s Blake Wheeler, the veteran winger whose seasoned presence steadies the kids— he’s day-to-day with an undisclosed ailment, leaving the bottom six scrambling for cohesion.
But it’s the defense where the chaos truly festers. Will Borgen, the bruising stay-at-home blueliner acquired in a midseason deal from Seattle last year to bolster the back end, has been a ghost since mid-October.
A concussion sustained in a brutal hit against the Islanders has kept him out indefinitely, robbing the Rangers of his physicality and shot-blocking prowess. Borgen’s 159 blocked shots and plus-5 rating in 2024-25 made him a cornerstone, and his void has exposed vulnerabilities.
Pair that with Jamie Oleksiak’s own concussion woes— the towering rearguard missed three straight games in early November and remains touch-and-go—and suddenly, Sullivan’s blue line is a patchwork quilt of inexperience.
Adam Fox, the Norris Trophy frontrunner with eight multipoint games already, has shouldered an impossible load, logging over 25 minutes per night while chipping in 15 points.
Vladislav Gavrikov has been a revelation beside him, tying for the team lead in assists among defensemen, but the third pairing? It’s a revolving door of AHL call-ups like Brett Berard, who made his debut against St. Louis with just nine minutes of ice time.
Sullivan’s response? A lineup blender set to puree. After a disastrous 0-3 road trip through Vegas, Colorado, and Utah—where the Rangers coughed up 12 goals in three nights—he scrapped the top-six wings, sliding Panarin to center and reuniting Zibanejad with Chris Kreider on a desperate bid for spark.
It worked in spurts: Panarin’s two-goal outburst against Nashville was a reminder of his 100-point pedigree, and Alexis Lafreniere’s deflection winner over the Blues showed the young sniper’s growth. But the inconsistencies linger.
Igor Shesterkin, the Vezina winner who’s faced 28 shots per game, has posted a .915 save percentage—solid, but not the brick wall needed when the puck rarely trickles in on the other end.
“We’re getting chances, but finishing is the killer,” Sullivan admitted post-Blues, echoing the frustration bubbling in the locker room. Players like Zibanejad, held to eight goals amid whispers of trade rumors, admit the mental toll: “It’s on us to execute, no excuses.”
As the Rangers limp into December, the timing couldn’t be crueler. The Penguins series—home-and-home clashes on December 5 and 8—looms as the most intense stretch yet, a Metropolitan blood feud with playoff implications etched in playoff history.
Pittsburgh, under new bench boss Dan Muse after Sullivan’s April departure from the Steel City, sits comfortably third in the division at 13-8-3. Sidney Crosby, at 40, is defying Father Time with 22 points, while Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang form a core that’s clawed back from early-season stumbles.
The Penguins’ 3-0 opener whitewash in New York still stings, a reminder of how Muse’s structured system neutralized the Rangers’ speed. With Borgen and Oleksiak potentially watching from the press box, Sullivan’s defensive roulette could prove fatal against Pittsburgh’s opportunistic forecheck.
Fans at the Garden, a sea of blue shirts weary from last spring’s first-round exit to Carolina, are restless. Chants of “Fire Sully?”—once unthinkable for the guy who just inked a three-year extension—have crept into the forums.
General manager Chris Drury, under pressure to flip the script after trading for Gavrikov and Soucy last deadline, faces a buyer’s remorse crossroads.
Do they double down on youth, promoting Hartford prospects like Berard full-time? Or chase a rental scorer at the expense of picks, risking cap Armageddon with Miller’s looming deal?
Yet amid the turmoil, glimmers persist. That Blues win wasn’t flashy—low-event hockey at its grind-it-out finest, with just 41 shots combined—but it was vintage Sullivan: structured, opportunistic, unbreakable.
Lafreniere’s 10 goals lead the team, Edstrom’s third-period tally sealed the deal, and Trocheck’s return (if he suits up) could ignite the faceoff circle, where New York ranks 18th. “This group’s got heart,” Fox said, towel-draped and bruised after the game. “We’ve been through worse. Penguins week? That’s our reset.”
For Rangers faithful dreaming of a Cup run not tasted since ’94, the path forward demands clarity. Sullivan must steady the ship, Borgen needs to lace ’em up, and the stars—Panarin, Zibanejad, Miller—have to rediscover their bite.
The Penguins series isn’t just rivalry redux; it’s a referendum on whether this Rangers edition can summon the magic that once defined them. In a league where parity bites hard, New York can’t afford to keep spinning. The clock’s ticking, the Garden’s waiting, and the Metropolitan maw is wide open.
Will they roar back, or fade into November’s chill? The puck drops soon, and the answers will follow.
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